


as we go along

by FoxGlade



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Mistletoe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-21 23:55:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13154754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxGlade/pseuds/FoxGlade
Summary: How Todd Brotzman faced down a smug sister and a shitty fish, saved his best friend from peril (again), gave a pretty good Christmas present, and got an even better one.





	as we go along

**Author's Note:**

> if this seems like 3 fics jammed together, i apologise, it was written quickly and on multiple devices. thanks to shena and nellie for screeching over it. u deserve more than the gay fanfic scraps i throw to you.
> 
> title is from Winter Wonderland. happy holidays yall, may they be bright and gay.

“I know Christmas is like, an antiquated tradition from a religious system put in place by centuries of colonization and maintained by our capitalistic society,” Todd says into the phone squeezed between his ear and his shoulder, “but just think about it, okay?”

“Fine,” Amanda says, voice tinny. Someone in the background shrieks, followed by a loud thump. “I didn’t think you even celebrated it anymore.”

Todd shrugs, then hastily catches the phone when it falls. “Dirk wanted to,” he says, switching on the speaker instead. He puts it on the desk and continues his futile tidying.

“Makes sense.”

“What does?”

“Well, if _Dirk_ wants to,” Amanda says, smugly. Todd frowns and flicks through some papers. They’re all printed with the same stock photo of a cowboy, in full colour. No wonder their printer is always out of ink.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” he says. Amanda scoffs.

“C’mon, dude. You do everything Dirk wants.”

“Do not.”

“Do too.”

“He wanted me to dye my hair red last week so we’d match,” Todd argues.

“Okay, but like, important stuff,” Amanda retorts. “Even when you first met it was like… I don’t know. He had you hooked. Like a fish.”

“I’m not a fish,” Todd says.

“Yeah you are. You’re like a shitty salmon, just riding the stream. The stream being Dirk.”

“I don’t ride Dirk,” Todd says, and is immediately glad that Farah is out in Bergsberg until Christmas morning, and Dirk is out getting breakfast for them both. “And that doesn’t even make sense. Salmon famously go against the stream.”

“Whatever,” Amanda says. “We might come over Christmas Day. We’re down south right now, there’s someone here who can feel people's emotions, it’s sick.” There’s a pause, and then Amanda asks, “Are you gonna call Mom and Dad?”

“Course,” he says, but it’s a loaded response. He’s talked to them since they all got wiped from the Most Wanted list, if only in bits and pieces. Yes, he’s fine, no, the police were only investigating him because of an incident at work, no, he doesn’t work there anymore. Yes, he has a job. Yes, he’s happy. “They want to visit for New Year’s. I’m gonna tell them about it then.”

“Least you can do,” Amanda sniffs. Todd messes with an octopus-shaped paperweight. “But I’m proud of you.”

“Yeah, well. This way they can disown me in time for the new year,” he says.

“They’re not gonna disown you, asshole. Just introduce them to Dirk first. He’s nice enough that they’ll keep you in the family just to see him again.”

“You’re really stuck on Dirk today, aren’t you?”

“Not as much as you are,” she says. “I gotta go, Cross just pulled a raccoon out of his bag.”

“Okay,” Todd says, choosing not to question this. “Be careful. Love you.” With Amanda rounding up former Blackwing subjects, he never knows when something might go wrong. And he’s trying to be honest with his feelings these days anyway.

“Love you too, fish guy.”

“I’m not—” But she’s already hung up. He pockets the phone and looks around the office in defeat.

Every inch is strung up with tinsel and mismatching lights, hanging from hooks that Dirk proudly proclaimed he’d installed in the dead of night. It shows. There’s a tree in the corner that’s seen better days, a rainbow-coloured wreath hanging on the front door, and a sprig of artificial mistletoe hanging from a string tied around the ceiling light in the center of the room.

There’s also a singing fish with a miniature Santa hat that Dirk insisted on buying from a pawn shop and mounted above Todd’s desk two weeks ago. Todd glares at it. He swears its tail flaps limply in response.

“Not a fish,” he insists, and pokes it for good measure.

“It sings a love song, as we go along,” the fish warbles, and then emits a demonic string of sounds that might be loosely interpreted as the words “walking in a winter wonderland”. No wonder Dirk loves it.

* * *

The agency doesn’t officially close, ever, so Todd probably should’ve expected Dirk to barge in at exactly 10:15am the day before Christmas Eve, waving a napkin with illegible writing scrawled across it.

“Todd, it’s a laundromat that’s actually _laundering money_ ,” Dirk insists. “How is that _not_ our type of case?”

“How is that not the kind of thing we just report to the police?” Todd asks, already getting his jacket.

Predictably, Dirk’s initial concept of the case is both right and wrong. The laundromat isn’t laundering money, or doing anything except offering the use of their washing machines at criminally low prices. The owner, while shady, also isn’t doing anything illegal. She _is_ having an ill-advised affair with the owner of the Krazy Kraft’s Korner Shop across the road, who seems to be involved in the forging of official documents for an underground dog fighting ring.

They find all this out without two days, which is uncharacteristically quick for them, so that’s a plus. The downside is that the dog fighting ring also finds out about them just as quickly, and they have vicious dogs on their side.

“It’s really not their fault!” Dirk yells as they barricade themselves into a supply cupboard within the craft store. “They’re not naturally violent creatures, they’re just bred and trained in cruel ways, once they’re rehabilitated they can actually be very sweet—”

One of the dogs slams against the door and snarls. Todd shoves his hand over Dirk’s mouth.

“You wanna go out there and tell it that?” he hisses. Dirk licks his palm. Todd makes a noise of disgust and yanks his hand away.

“That was childish,” Dirk tells him. Todd shoves him back into the shelf, which immediately buckles, sending various crafting items showering down around them. It’s hard to tell in the dark, but Todd hears a metallic thud, followed by Dirk giving a high-pitched “shit!”

“You okay?” he asks, hands finding Dirk’s shoulders. Something wet is dripping over his jacket. “Shit, is that blood?!” He immediately starts running his fingers over Dirk’s head, trying to find a wound. Head injuries bleed a lot, he knows, and they’re not exactly in a position to rush to the hospital…

“It’s paint,” Dirk says sourly. The panic in Todd’s throat lessens slightly. “The can fell on me. Shit, it’s in my _mouth_. Eugh.”

“Jesus, Dirk, you scared me,” Todd breathes. His heart is still racing, so he lets his head fall onto Dirk’s chest for a moment. It’s nice, even if he can feel paint sticking in his hair.

“Apologies,” Dirk says, quietly, and after a second he feels a hesitant hand on the back of his neck.

It’s a nice moment, standing pressed together in the silent dark. Until the dog jumps at the door again and howls, making the two of them start and bump together awkwardly.

“They couldn’t have been running this thing out of the café down the street, could they?” Todd mutters, avoiding eye contact, even though the darkness of the cupboard makes eye contact impossible. “We could just throw some chicken out there for it to distract it or something.”

“Or something equally tasty,” Dirk says. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to offer up your leg?”

“No, Dirk,” Todd says, rather than asking if Dirk thinks his legs look tasty. “Is there a squeaky toy around here? Some bells? Would that be loud enough to distract it?”

Dirk starts rummaging around on the top shelves, and Todd takes the middle. It’s pretty hard, given the darkness, so it’s mostly just running his hands back and forth and grabbing random things, with the barking of the dog providing a countdown for their search.

He’s shaking something that might be a packet of google eyes when Dirk gasps and grabs his shoulder. “Todd, Todd, do you have the everbulb?” he asks.

Immediately Todd starts digging in his many jacket pockets, surfacing with the bright light a few seconds later. “Shit, I don’t even remember putting this in here,” he marvels. Dirk flaps at him frantically.

“Hold it up, hold it up, I have an idea,” he babbles. Todd complies as Dirk hoists himself up onto the bottom shelf so he can lean over the top, digging through the back of the cupboard. His jeans are very tight. Todd does his best not to stare.

“Got it!” Dirk announces. He shimmies back onto solid ground, holding a large white jug in one hand. Todd squints.

“Bleach?” he asks. Ironically given the literal lightbulb above his head, it takes a second to understand. “Bleach!”

“Bleach!” Dirk agrees, and unscrews the cap, dumping the contents over the floor.

Two things happen. The dog stops barking and starts whimpering instead as the bleach spills underneath the door, and a second later they hear the click of its paws as it scampers away from the powerful smell, so that’s a plus.

The downside is the powerful smell, which quickly fills the entire cupboard with a choking thickness. Dirk blinks heavily and Todd sways on his feet, grabbing at the top shelf to steady himself.

“That’s… hmm,” Dirk says slowly. “I’d like to go now, I think.”

“Good idea,” Todd groans. Dirk fumbles at the doorknob and pushes it open, dragging Todd with him into the fresh air. They both take a few gasping breaths, bent over and wheezing.

“I can’t believe that worked,” Dirk says, right before they hear the distinctive click of a gun’s safety switching off.

One of the leaders is standing in front of them, pistol raised. “Not quite,” he says, with a distinct British accent. Todd looks over to see Dirk abruptly make an annoyed face.

“Are you from Manchester?” he asks. The man tilts his head. “Ugh. Figures.”

“Figures?” the man scoffs. “That’s rich, coming from some poncy Oxford twat.”

“Cambridge, thank you,” Dirk says, clearly putting every inch of stuffy English pride he can into it. “Not that I’d expect you to know the difference.”

Todd is this close to smacking him in the back of the head, but at that moment Dirk’s eyes dart over to him – just for a second, but enough for Todd to realise he’s stalling.

“You lot are all the same,” the man rants, waving his gun to gesticulate. Todd steps back slowly, edging towards the cupboard. “Rich from daddy’s money, never worked a day in your life, always looking down your old-blood nose at us who make our living, self-sanctimonious bastards who want nothing more than—”

Todd stoops and grabs the paint can, flinging it at the guy with the gun. It hits him square in the forehead and knocks him backwards, splattering red paint across the floor.

“Oh my _God_ , Todd, how hard did you hit him?” Dirk says, appalled. Todd sighs.

“It’s paint, Dirk, we went over this,” he says. He goes and crouches down next to the man, making sure he won’t get up in the next few minutes. Of course, he then realises he has no way of knowing that, so he contents himself with making sure the man is currently unconscious. Which he is.

“Oh. Hmm.” Dirk looks down at himself, noticing for the first time the red drenching his previously light green jacket. “Shit. At least it’s festive.”

“Super festive,” Todd agrees. “Come on, we need to leave.”

They walk past the unconscious man to the exit, and as they go, Dirk nudges his body with his foot.

“Merry Christmas,” he says, and then in the worst American accent Todd’s ever heard, “Ya filthy animal.”

It’s probably Dirk’s weird tastes rubbing off on him, but in that moment, Todd’s never loved him more.

* * *

It’s late Christmas Eve when they finally get back to the office, exhausted from dealing with police, still covered in paint. Or at least, Dirk is covered in paint. Todd is sort of smeared with it.

“That wrapped up surprisingly judiciously,” Dirk says as he peels off his jacket. It’s gone stiff and dry, and the red has turned a more sinister, darker shade. “Usually there’s a lot more faffing about with cryptic clues and painfully ironic accidents.”

“Maybe the universe just wanted to give you a Christmas present,” Todd says wearily. At this point he just wants to get the stuff he left here yesterday and go home, where his shitty mattress is waiting to cradle him into a night of shitty sleep. He grabs a bag under his desk and bundles it up in an old jacket and t-shirt he’d brought in for some reason, mind absent, and Dirk hums.

“Unlikely,” he says, “I’ve never gotten a Christmas present before. I doubt the universe has changed its tune on that front.”

Todd stops. He turns. Dirk is idling next to the door, picking at the paint flaking off his jacket. His expression is breezy, but he looks more vulnerable without a jacket.

“Like... never?” Todd asks. Dirk tilts his head.

“Well,” he says, “when I was younger, I found this kitten out in the street, and that was near Christmas. But I had to give it to the Belgian ambassador’s daughter a few days later. Long story. Actually, she was quite lovely about it, offered to let me visit—”

“Stop.” Todd doesn’t hesitate to drop the jacket and shirt in his arm, fumbling with the bag until he can pull out the present inside. In this moment, it’s important to him that Dirk not go another second without receiving at least one Christmas present, even one as last-minute and imperfect as this. “Here. Merry Christmas.”

Dirk blinks at him and then walks towards him with careful steps, as if he’s a cautious stray and the present in Todd’s hand is a mouthful of food. “If I remember correctly,” he says slowly, “presents are typically exchanged on Christmas morning.”

“I want you to have it now,” Todd says. “It’s cold out.”

Finally Dirk is within arm’s reach. After a moment, he cautiously takes the present and lifts it up to the light. “A new jacket?” he asks.

“A new jacket,” Todd says. It’s big and brown, made of soft leather and patched in several places with a dark green fabric with an almost velvety texture, and the inside is lined with silk of the same green. It’s not flashy and colourful in the way Dirk’s other jackets are, but it had stood out to Todd all the same. He shifts nervously as Dirk examines it.

“So?” he asks finally. Dirk looks up and stares at him. “Is it... you don’t have to wear it.”

“I’ll wear it every day,” Dirk breathes. “I’m wearing it right now. I’ll wear it to sleep!”

“Don’t wear it to sleep,” Todd says as Dirk struggles into it. It’s a little too big, but in a fashionable way. Dirk flaps the sleeves a few times experimentally and then beams.

“It’ll match my Mexican Funeral shirt,” Dirk says, and then gasps, bouncing on his toes a bit. “Oh! Oh! Wait here!”

“We’re driving home together,” Todd points out. Dirk ignores him in favour of rummaging through the trash pile of his own desk. “Wait, you wear the Mexican Funeral shirt to sleep?”

“It’s very comfy,” Dirk says. There’s a thump, and then he emerges from the pile triumphantly, clutching something grey, hurrying back to the centre of the room where Todd stands. “Here. Merry Christmas.”

“You didn’t have to get me anything,” Todd says, but he takes the gift anyway, shaking it out just as Dirk had. And suddenly, like Dirk, he can’t stop looking at it.

“Well, I haven’t ever gotten a present, but I also haven’t given any presents, which I believe is just as important,” Dirk says. “Is it... good?”

It’s a t-shirt, and Todd is having the weirdest reminiscence of standing outside a hospital with Dirk, except this time Dirk is the one giving him clothing with unexpected meaning. The shirt is grey, and already soft, and stencilled on the front in black letters is ‘Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency’, complete with a stylish cat perched next to the last word.

“It’s a prototype,” Dirk tells him, and he sounds almost nervous. “So you’d have to take care of it. Not get shot in it and all that.”

Todd folds the shirt up carefully, as if it’s made of cobwebs instead of fabric. “It’s good,” he says. He clears his throat and tries again. “Probably good pyjamas, right?”

Dirk lights up. “Perfect pyjamas,” he agrees. “No chance of getting shot then. Well, only a very slim chance. Basically negligible.”

Todd tries and fails to stifle a laugh, and if anything, Dirk glows even brighter. He ducks his head, and his bangs fall over his paint-speckled forehead, and his shoulders hunch up in his slightly too big jacket, and Todd’s heart does a pathetic flop in his chest.

He clears his throat again and says, “Thanks, Dirk. I love it.”

Dirk smiles at him and opens his mouth to say something, then pauses. “Hmm,” he says, and looks straight up. Todd follows his gaze to the mistletoe hanging from the ceiling light above them.

“Huh,” he says. He looks back at Dirk. Dirk makes that face he does when he’s trying not to smile, the one that’s annoying but also endearing. “This is another tradition you’ve never done, right?”

“I’ve heard good things about it,” Dirk says, voice confident, but he bites his lip immediately after. Todd stares at it for a second, then shakes himself out of it, then realises the ridiculousness of not letting himself look at Dirk’s lips when he’s about to— when he wants to—

“Please,” Dirk says quietly, and that’s permission enough. Todd leans up on his toes, putting a hand on Dirk’s jaw to steady himself, and kisses him.

It’s sweet, and fills Todd up with a gentle warmth, especially when Dirk puts his hands on Todd’s waist and holds him in place. And when they break apart, they remain there, keeping him close.

Dirk meets his eyes for a moment and smiles softly, that look he’s been giving Todd since they met, and then ducks to kiss his cheek before burying his face in Todd’s neck. “I love Christmas,” he mumbles. Todd puts a hand on the back of neck and smiles as well, probably the same fond smile he’s been giving Dirk since they met. “I can’t wait for Easter.”


End file.
